1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to flash shot control devices for cameras, and more particularly to a device responsive to automatic detection of a backlight situation of a subject for firing a flash unit.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It has been known in the art to provide a camera having a flash unit with automatic means making it possible to fire the flash unit to fill shadows of a subject in response to detection of the fact that the subject is in backlight, thus preventing the subject from being underexposed, as, for example, proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,667,357.
In this case, because the background has a high brightness, the diaphragm must be stopped down. So, the guide number of the flash unit is necessarily somewhat unduly large. To come up with a compact camera whose flash lamp or unit has a small guide number, particularly when the shadows of the subject are very deep, there will be a high possibility of either failing to obtain a sufficient fill-in flash, or shortening the effective approach distance.
If a large increase of the guide number of the flash unit is attempted, however, it will result that an advance in the compactness of the camera is obstructed, or that, as it takes a long time to fully charge the storage capacitor, taking a series of flash shots is very time consuming. These drawbacks become very serious when a quick and easy management is aimed at.